The story gives a very detailed and at times complex overview of how digital computers as we know them were primarily driven the establishment of an institute based at Princeton and the brilliant men and women that worked there. At times the story got very detailed and found myself struggling to get through. If you want a detailed history of these people and events this is the book.

This is about some of the most important people of the 20th Century you may have never heard of. John Von Neumann? maybe, but Stanley Ulam? It was a first for me. For better or worse and people do see these thing differently, the relentless implementation of ideas from from almost nothing to today's laptop, cell phone and even that thing that manages your automobile engine and are now seemingly crucial to our lives, perhaps even to our civilization. I read this book almost two years ago and it made me dizzy with the extraordinary stories of ultra (pun intended) brilliant human beings and the amazingly creative solutions they devised to make the first universal computing machine from parts so crude and unreliable that you would have never given it a chance. Much of what they devised is not only standard in today's computer programs, but are named after them. Recently, I saw the movie, "The Imitation Game" which focused on Alan Turing's remarkable contribution the British breaking the Nazi's unbreakable code and in no insignificant way win the war. So, I gave Turing's Cathedral another shot. Let's face it, you could read it five times and the information is so densely packed you will get large new insights and understanding each time. As I said at the beginning, you have to like the subject matter, but if you do, you will really enjoy this book - perhaps again, and even again.

So many irrelevant facts it is really hard to pay attention and filter out the interesting parts... It feels like there are 100 irrelevant pieces of information for every relevant insight.For a book called "Turing's Cathedral" you would expect Alan Turing to play at least a decent part... I'm amazed to have gotten nearly a quarter through the book and he has barely been mentioned.

Would you ever listen to anything by George Dyson again?

Not likely.

How could the performance have been better?

Stick to the relevant facts and tell what must be a compelling story about the key players involved in creating the field of computing.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

This book has real value to those interested in the history of computation. So many history of science books are thin and give the reader almost nothing, but if you are really interested in mathematics and computation you will enjoy this book.

One of the few books where I did not read it all. I generally love any book about Turing or information theory, but he delved too much in to the history. I really didn't need to know that the Indian tribe was on the site of the think tank before the think tank was built on it and so on. Not enough on Turing and his theory and too much history for my taste. (If you like history more than information theory, the book can work for you and go ahead and give it a try).

Most scientific discoveries take a long time to make it to the general public. In the case of mathematics this is even more visible, people applying mathematics in real life, usually hear the names from antiquity to the renaissance, but seldom the names of people of the twenty century.Computer science is a recent science, and here we hear about people that can have existed in our lifetime who changed the world with science and technology.I was surprised to find out that the architecture of our computers has been thought out so recently. (Which actually shows me how little I thought about the subject) And that for the pioneers of the forties, the choices aren't as evident as they appear to be now.Recent history can seem so distant when you take things for granted.

One of the few books where I did not listen to all of it. I generally love any book about Turing or information theory, but he delved too much in to the history. I really didn't need to know that the Indian tribe was on the site of the think tank before the think tank was built on it and so on. Not enough on Turing and his theory and too much history for my taste. (If you like history more than information theory, the book can work for you and go ahead and give it a try)